Over my trip to Warwick, I read (in French) Rosetta Loy’s Nero è l’albero dei ricordi, azzurra l’aria (not translated into English, it seems). I had not previously heard of this Italian author and I came through it courtesy of my (Italian) colleague Alessandra Iacobucci. Once I started reading this book I found it quite hard to put down as its description of familial destinies in the wartime Italy was superbly mesmerizing. The setting also was new to me as other Italian wartime novels I had read, like Morante‘s La Storia or Malaparte’s Kaputt, were not so intimate (even though I think I still rank La Storia higher…) The story concentrates on three teenagers of a well-off family and on their tutor, both during World War II and after the liberation. The descriptions of the (mostly dramatic) love stories involving those teenagers are as clinical as the description of the El-Alamein disaster in the Lybian sands, while the vision of the post-war Italy starting on a new track is equally well-done. So I definitely recommend the book, even though one may find the style a bit pedantic in the most historical moments (like the Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre or the Lybian war).